Quandary
by jcw124
Summary: Covers a period of Sam and Dean Winchester's childhood in which they go through a particularly rough spot with their father, John, who is on his own path. Just updated! Read and review, PLEASE? :)
1. Adversary

**Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any characters! Unfortunately.**

**1989**

As he walks briskly through the streets of Minneapolis, his fingers trembling for the familiar clutch of a cigarette between them, John Winchester is seething with anger. He marinates in it, permits the wrath and self-loathing to spread through his body like the blood his heart is pumping. He'd failed on a hunt for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Someone's son is dead because of him, because of his inability for courage to break through the surface in the presence of a fire.

A fucking _fire._

John has seen fire more than he'd like to, but he usually accepts it without his muscles bunching in irrational fear and saliva clogging his throat.

It wasn't something he couldn't control, either. This was a painless demon job to him; nevertheless, painless did not mean carelessness to John, and he was quick to instill that in his sons.

Just because you think something is simple, doesn't mean you can go in unprepared, inattentive, and negligent. That's what gets you killed!

Recollections of the last night enter his mind in quick bursts. The demon turning on the stove. The little boy, no more than Sam's age, huddled in the corner, already struggling to breathe as the stench of gas constricted his airways.

A pair of black pools for eyes laughing quietly as John seized his holy water and fired his salt rock gun.

And then everything was ablaze, just like that. Terrified, he pulled the trigger of his weapon over and over, his shots drastically off-kilter and his grip unbalanced. Flames licked at his flannel and Timberlands, the heat burning his eyes. A snap of the demon's fingers and John was blasted from the exploding house, his ears ringing with no perception, heart wildly out of time. Because he wasn't more responsible, a wake was being held for a baby boy today, Joshua Keller, aged six.

John feels he is obligated to go because he did this to Joshua. He may as well have held a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

But John also knows he cannot initiate eye contact with the parents of this boy. He will not be able to handle their faces, contorted in crippling agony. Maybe he can just offer them support, instead. He knows the impact of death all too well.

He snorts as he gets into his car. He is too much of a coward to try and offer support in time of need. Just ask his boys.

His boys. They have not crossed his mind since he arrived here three days ago.

John's long absences are usually cut short by a call from Bobby Singer, moaning and groaning about how much of a deadbeat father he is. Traditionally, it's followed by a heated argument between the two men, and a reluctant John returning to Sioux Falls for a night before whisking them away.

Because he did not have enough money on hand to afford a night in a motel, John begins driving towards South Dakota. The heating system in the car is broken, and quickly his fingers manage to turn to ice in the December chill. His mind is trying to work through the rage and self-deprecation it is drowning in. But it's futile, he knows it. John will never stop rubbing salt into his own wounds, twisting the knife to cut them deeper.

When he gets to Bobby's shabby house late the next morning, he is greeted with a steely glare and a mouth drawn taut.

"They're sleeping." He says dryly. John nods and follows him into the kitchen, digging his hands into the pockets of his puffy jacket. His joints ache with exhaustion and he wants to ask for coffee, but he knows Bobby will not give it to him unless he has concrete answers.

They sit across from each other at the kitchen table. "Where did you go, John?"

He tries to look past Bobby. "Minneapolis."

"Why?" A scuffling noise from upstairs makes their heads snap up. Instinctively, Bobby pushes himself up from the table to attend to whomever woke up. John doesn't know how to feel at this not being automatic to him, also.

Entangled in Bobby's arms is Sam, long bangs covering his eyes and chubby baby hands clutching the fabric of his shirt. Tossing John a warning look over his shoulder, he sets the kid in a chair. "Are you hungry, kiddo?"

"Yes!" says Sam, grinning.

"Take your pick." Bobby opens the pantry and Sam pours himself some Lucky Charms. Patting Sam's shoulder, Bobby beckons John to join him in the study and shuts the door.

"Now, why Minneapolis, Winchester?" John's jaw locks and he grinds his teeth together. Mary called him that, even when they were married.

"It was a demon job."

Bobby moves some lore books and Mason jars aside. "Don't seem that simple to me."

John feels his temperature rising and slams his palms on the desk. He's lightheaded and his stomach growls detestably. "I was being a bitch, Bobby. Happy now?"

The man shakes his head, pacing around the desk, and throws his hands in the air. "Just tell me what the hell happened and I'll help ya!"

John's breath hitches and he can't compose himself. His walls are cracking, his walls are coming down, and he's frightened of what level of destruction this will cause. He tells Bobby a half-truth in light of the situation. Revealing he was too weak to do what he needed to do would destroy his reputation. John never wants to be weak again in his life, and neither of his boys will be slapped with that shame or brand. He would teach them, and he would teach them well and without mercy from then on.

"The demon lit the house on fire."

Bobby folds his hands. An image of Karen flashes in his line of vision. He doesn't flinch; after all these years, he's used to it.

"The bastard."

"She got away, Bobby. And there was a boy…and I've never seen anyone more scared in my life. I failed him. The house exploded, and…" The story was tumbling out of John's mouth in jagged pieces. But there was an exception to John seeing someone more scared than Joshua.

That was Dean, four years old, being told to take his brother outside as fast as he could, don't look back, now Dean, go!

That day begins to mix with the hunt of two nights ago in John's head. Mary's screams melt into the angry crackle of the fire. A migraine drums its song in John's brain. He wants to pass out, but instead croaks out a meek "coffee" and grips onto the edge of the desk. Bobby leaves the room and John sits in an armchair, spots dancing in front of his eyes. He doesn't know how much time has passed when he feels a warm cup pressed against his white knuckles.

He sees Bobby's mouth moving, but no words coming out. John feels like his ears are stuffed with cotton.

"—you hear?" Bobby narrows his eyes.

John almost chuckles. "No."

"The hell is wrong with you? I said, you need a rest, John. You need to eat, to sleep—Hell, I suggest you shower and shave. The whole nine yards or you ain't leavin' with Sam and Dean."

"You can't control what I do with them, Bobby. If you wanted a damn kid you shoulda had one before you killed your wife." A hard force on the side of his face and a loud crashing noise resides John stunned. He's swinging before he knows what's happening, jumps on his feet and focuses his blurry vision on Bobby, who looks both sick to his stomach and outraged.

Bobby tugs his shirt collar towards him harshly, John's head loosely swinging up and down. They're eye-to-eye, wild blue to dazed hazel.

He is so close to John he spits, and snarls, "If you ever talk about her—ever again—I will shove your head so far up your ass you'll be sorry." He lets go and John lets himself fall with a soft thud.

He scrambles up to meet Bobby. "I'm sorry…I'm sorry..I don't know what's wrong with me Bobby. The hunt—"

"Who cares about the goddamn hunt anymore, boy? You got boys, little boys! Six and ten and one knows how to shoot a gun and throw knives? You insane, John? You shouldn't have taken this on! They need'a be kids, not little pawns in a game!"

Usually John would have punched him, or yelled his brains out and grabbed the boys by their wrists—_Daddy you're hurting me!_—to strap them into the car. But he felt naked without his strength or mask to hide his emotions with.

He swallows and strokes his beard. "Did Dean learn how to shoot a double barrel while I was gone?"

Bobby laughs. Bobby laughs at him mockingly. "You bet your ass he did not."

John pushes past him and bellows Dean's name throughout the house. The pasty-faced boy makes his way to the foyer, little Sammy gripping his hand tight.

"Yes, sir?"

"Did you learn the double barrel when I was gone?" Dean looks up at him. His father's eyes scream, disappointment! Failure! Disgrace! Pathetic!

His eyes water with fat tears and he shakes his head. Sammy squeezes his hand and sticks his thumb in his mouth.

Before he registers what exactly he is doing John draws his hand back and skin hits skin with a solid noise. The silence is deafening for a split second. In the next instant, Bobby is rushing over and consoling Dean, Sammy is crying, and time stands still with John.

Dean just stands there. He is not crying. He feels like he is rooted to the ground, holding his cheek with wide green eyes glued to the floorboards. Uncle Bobby is hugging him and stroking his hair. The poor boy is shivering and his freckles stand out like angry dark bruises on his face. Already, the swelling of his cheek is making him uncomfortable and fidgety.

Sam is playing with his brother's long, bony fingers. "It's okay Dean, it's okay," he whispers repeatedly, barely audible in the chaos. Bobby orders him to sit in the bathroom with Dean and a pack of ice. With a tiny smile, he sits Dean on the toilet seat and holds the ice against his face. For once, Sam is in charge. He likes such responsibility. It's such an easy job.

He listens to Bobby yell at John to get out, to catch a break, to live with Pastor Jim for a while. He'll hold down the fort. He'll help the boys. John's rasps are feeble, and the pounding of his boots eventually fades out. Sam looks over at his older brother.

"Are you feeling better?" He nudges him and scoots beside Dean on the toilet seat.

An unaccompanied shrug.

"Daddy's never hit much. Not that I remember. But he spanks me when I deserve it."

"You don't deserve it."

"Yeah, I do. He tells me so." The thumb is inserted into his mouth and Dean extracts it.

"You'll get a gap in your teeth if you carry on with that."

"Oh." Sam says. "Hey Dean?"

"What?"

"Was..Dad ever like…not mean?"

Dean turns on the faucet, sticks his hands in the sink, and washes some blood off of them. It's pink as it swirls down the drain. "Yeah."

Little feet swing up and down, up and down, up and down on the toilet seat. "When?"

"You were really small, dude. A baby. You wouldn't remember."

Sam giggles, all John's dimples. "So tell me!"

"Mom was still alive." Dean smiles to himself at the bittersweet memory. "We went to a baseball game. You and Mom were in one chair and me and dad in the other. We got cotton candy." He tries to make Sam remember. But he figures if he can't recall stuff that happened when he was a baby, neither can his brother.

"So what about Dad?"

"He caught a ball for me—" He corrects himself. "And you too. And everyone cheered and Mom smiled so big…she kissed him. I wish you could'a seen her, Sammy. She was just…great."

Sam is looking at him. His hazel eyes are giant saucers of admiration. For once, he isn't crying about the absence of their mother. He just takes it all in, curled next to Dean, nodding every once and a while about a certain detail.

"I love you." He murmurs to his shoes.

"I love you." Dean repeats.

It's a confusing word to the brothers, but it feels right then and there.

Yet it's still a puzzling word. For different reasons.

Mom and Dad always said it to each other, but why was Mommy so angry at Daddy on the phone? Why did Daddy push Mommy into the wall that one time? What did she do wrong?

Daddy says he loves Sam, so why does he spank and smack and yell and hit?

John is an enigma to his boys. And he always will be.

**This will be multichapter! Please review!**


	2. Yesteryear

**Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any characters! Unfortunately.**

John's tongue feels like lead in his mouth as he hears the _swish-bang _of Bobby Singer's door behind him. He's blinking rapidly, attempting to reign in what's transpired in the room he's been in so many times. One thing he's certain of is staring down the barrel of Bobby's sawed-off shotgun isn't a good sign.

_Git off my property before I fill your beer belly with buckshot, Winchester!_ John scoffs and dismisses the insult with a wave of his hand, climbing into the Impala and smiling at her purr to life.

To blow off steam, he's taken to driving down to Nevada and playing his luck in Las Vegas. Hopefully, he can scrape together enough dough to have a sufficient Christmas for one at the a seedy, localized motel.

He decides to contact Jim Murphy halfway through Interstate 15, primarily because there's no one to talk to and he feels as if he's going indefinitely stir-crazy. The pastor answers on the second ring, as always.

"Hello?" Jim's voice is heavy with fatigue.

John digs around for a cigarette in his pocket, his fingers quivering. He hasn't indulged in one for days. "Jim. Where are you?"

"I'm at the church. Are you en route?"

He clears his throat, contemplating. The church would provide food, warmth, and comfort until Christmastime. Blue Earth wasn't a ramshackle area, either; the alcohol was cheap and the bars aren't too far apart. To juxtapose his friends, John favored that Jim wasn't prone to prying like Bobby was. "I am now. I was going to Nevada, but I figured you'd be better company." John could hear the smile in Jim's voice.

"There will be dinner ready when you arrive." replies the pastor warmly. "I'll see you soon."

Pastor James Murphy anticipates John's sons to be trailing behind him when he entered the house. However, the slapping of canvas sneakers on wooden floor is absent, and dead silence slips in to the cracks instead. Rigidly, the clergyman folds his friend's coat and lays it over the coatrack. A teakettle whirs faintly from the kitchen, and John scowls at the familiar scent of gingerbread and incense. "You got a pack of Marlboros lying around, Jim?"

"I'm a man of faith, John, I don't give free rein to such things." Jim answers firmly. "Where are Sam and Dean?"

The vicar notices a chord has been struck in John's face. The hunter grinds his teeth together, brushing his fingers through his dark beard. "Bobby's."

"Why not spend Christmas together?" offers Jim, sliding a cup of coffee and roast beef sandwich across the table. "My house is always open to you, you know this."

"I need a bit of separation." John notes curtly, taking a long swig of the drink. It doesn't quell his thirst as thoroughly as alcohol, but it's what he has. Winchester men can and will survive on the least of everything.

A flicker of consternation is evident in Jim's eyes. He doesn't comprehend how the outgoing, optimistic John Winchester of the past could evolve into such a devastatingly neglecting father in a matter of six years. Those boys deserve better than what they have. In the past year alone, Jim recalls how gaunt their faces have become and the dissipation in the appearance of genuine, juvenile smiles. Clothes fit ill, dark eye shadows stand out like shiners, and words go unsaid. The man's stomach twists as he realizes how much he fears for the lives of the little boys. Hunting is not something you drag babies into.

He looks up to meet John's calculating hazel eyes. "...Don't you believe they need you? It's a holiday."

"Dean can take care of Sam-"

Jim closes his eyes and inhales, folding his hands. "Dean is not Sam's father. You are."

John feels muscles bunch up in his shoulders. "-And fathers work. I work to protect them."

"There is a thin line between working to protect them and working to isolate yourself." Jim asserts, shaking his head. "You have a very strange way of loving them, John. That's all I'm willing to say."

He is taken aback by this. Although his right hand clenches into a fist, it never leaves the table. When John opens his mouth, he senses a coppery taste along his tongue. Moments drift by before he perceives that he's chewed the inside of his mouth so hard he's bleeding.

"Jim...I think I need to make a confession here."

It's Jim's turn to be thrown off guard. "I-what is it then? We don't need to utilize the confessional. Don't worry." He straightens his clerical collar and coughs into his fist.

"I met a woman in Windom a couple months ago. I'd almost died on a hunt, and she coached me through everything that was happening. So, I took her out after I was discharged. And...she's pregnant."

Jim nods slowly, his blood running cold. His knee jiggles as he sifts through something to say. "Have you talked to her about it?"

"No." His Adam's apple bobs with a rough swallow.

"You've abandoned her?"

Stillness settles between the men.

"It's not that I don't feel guilty, Jim. I can't believe I've done this to...to her. To..." They both know the name, unspeakable. It evokes too much pain in John to even eyeball the candid photo of her propped upon an offering candle in Jim's chapel.

The priest reflects on how broken John was in the immediate wake of Mary's death. Everything was very mechanical and godforsaken. Everyone, particularly Jim, perceived it to be a stage of denial.

Obviously, they were wrong.

"It's alright to accept grief and move on, John. It's normal for people to feel lonely or dependent on others after a passing."

No, it isn't. John's words become irate and inarticulate. "I will never accept what happened to my wife until I kill the fucking beast that did it and whatever else that comes in the way of that."

"But at what cost, John? Your life? The lives of your baby boys?"

Baby boys.

John can pinpoint the exact moment he fell in love with his firstborn. It was the day Mary told him she was pregnant, at dinner sometime in May 1978. They'd danced and sang and kissed along to one of her records all night after that, gleeful that they were going to bring a baby into the world in nine month's time.

That informal picture John had sacrificed for the church was taken the next day. They'd driven down to the beach, and he'd chased around a Mary clad in nothing but a polka-dot two piece and a floppy sunhat. She rambled about the ocean and conch shells that you can hear the ocean in. She forced him to listen, but there was nothing for him to hear. He figured he was too stupid and straightforward to encompass himself in imagination and creativity like his wife.

They'd talked about the baby while their feet dabbled in the tiny waves that lapped along the shore. John couldn't help dwelling on the fact that he was afraid he'd be an inadequate father to their son. Mary had the intuition that it was, in fact, a son.

_Nonsense,_ assured Mary. _As long as you're a good daddy, I'll be a good mommy, and vice versa. Right, Winchester_? She pounded his chest with her arm.

_Right, Winchester,_ he replied sheepishly.

On that cold day in January, when they placed the baby into his arms all tiny and wrinkly and pink, he burst into tears. Such a thing seldom happened; regardless, he was so overwhelmed with joy that he'd helped create this aesthetic creature. Mary, exhausted but eager to lay eyes on her son, talked to John in a proud whisper that she knew he'd be a football star, a family man, a ball of energy. _He'll grow like a weed, John! Oh, he's so handsome..._

He'd just stroked her hair and told her that she did so good. Really, really good, because he couldn't think of another word to describe how he felt over such a glorious event.

When Dean was three, Mary sat her boys down and told them she was pregnant. John picked her up and swung her around while their son clapped and squealed. John had put his hand on her stomach and whispered how happy he was. Even if the baby couldn't hear him, he'd hoped it knew how he felt.

They knew the baby was a Sam when she was seven months, sitting on the porch with a notebook and a blue ink pen. _Baby names, John! _She'd exclaimed, flashing a radiant grin.

He suggested Samuel after a long while of skirting around the issue. Her daddy, the namesake, had died a few years before of a sudden heart attack. But it felt right, Samuel. He imagined saying it loud and clear, thundering across a valley and trumpeting into the ears of the people. A feeble kick from Mary's womb confirmed that this was indeed the name of the child.

A gorgeous day in May sent Mary into the maternity ward of the local hospital. He'd toted Dean around with a nervous grip. The youngster seemed more calm than he was, carrying on about how excited he was to be a big brother and what he'd do for the baby. He'd feed it. He'd play with it. He'd kiss it goodnight and give it baths.

John indicated that would be a good place to start.

In a whirlwind of anxious patience, the soft cries of baby Sam sent John's heart into his throat. Mary's wide blue eyes leaked tears of happiness as they swaddled him in a fluffy blue towel and white hat. Everything seemed to be in slow motion for John as a nurse transferred the baby into his wife's outstretched hands. Dean craned his neck to take a look at the child; promptly was he lifted onto his father's lap.

_So pretty,_ whispered the boy, his green eyes swelled with awe.

_Isn't he?_ sighed Mary fondly, gently caressing the toddler's blond hair. Sam wriggled to get comfortable in the protective grip of his mother, opening and closing his peachy lips like a fish and blinking those heavily lashed eyes tinted a customary shade of newborn baby blue.

Dean reached over and grabbed the newborn's hand. He didn't do anything with it, just played with his tiny fingers and mumbled inaudibly into his ear. Either Mary nor John knew what Dean had said the day Sam was born.

To this day, John wishes he knew what his elder son had spoken. Maybe it would help him now, help them both, help them all.

To be frank, children know more about dreams and nightmares than adults ever will.

"I...I don't know Jim. I'll go crazy if I don't kill this thing, I swear it." He sucks in air, trying to dismiss the bright tears pricking at the edges of his eyes. "I have to. I have to."

"This life's work might just lead you to a dead end, John."

The Winchester's eyes are downcast as he spits the words bitterly from deep inside his throat."As long as it ends."

**Please review!**


	3. Awaken, Part I

**Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any characters! Unfortunately.**

Small signs of John's absence are strewn all throughout Bobby's house the following morning. The scent of his familiar aftershave in the shower, or the torn leather glove wedged between the couch cushions, only makes Dean's heart ache more. His steps feel as slow and heavy as the blood flowing through his veins. The bright overhead lights in the kitchen seems to stab incessantly at the space between his eyes.

"How 'bout we do something you boys wanna do?" Bobby offers, the corners of his mustache turning up in a smile. Sam's head bobs up and down excitedly.

"Yeah, Dean! C'mon, what do ya wanna do!" The little boy whoops shrilly between shovels of Rice Krispies into his mouth. Bobby revels at the fact that there is finally laughter in the house again.

Dean locks eyes with his brother. He has never been asked what he wants to do. For the sake of not causing a scene, he tends to squash down his lust and adhere to his father's orders. That's when the self-loathing sets deeper into his mind. It is always what Dad or Sammy or Uncle Bobby or Ellen want to do and he's so fucking tired of it he gladly takes the reins.

"I want to hunt, Bobby. I want to hunt all day today." He leans a hip against the counter and runs his tongue around his cheek, his dark eyebrows raising in indignation. Sam twists to stare at him.

"I don't want to do that, Dean!" His breath comes out in quick bursts as he wrinkles his nose and slaps his hand on the table.

"Well, too bad, Sam!" yells the older Winchester, throwing his hands in the air. "I want to! Bite me!"

Bobby takes a swig of whiskey from the bottle and shoots Dean a warning look. The boy reflects how exasperated Bobby is himself. Grinding his teeth together, he regroups and forces his lips to form soothing words. "Your dad ain't here. We don't gotta hunt, you hear, Dean? Why not play catch or take a run or something?" He studies the bristling boy for a minute or two. Although he'd never met his mother, Bobby knows Dean resembles the woman, and that's what causes John so much heartache. In retrospect, Dean Winchester didn't look like his father in the slightest. He was a towheaded, freckly kid with bright green eyes powdered with flecks of gold. He was big for ten, big in the sense of strong and lean. He watches Sam wash his hands in the sink as Dean pulls his sleeves up; the hatchet had quickly been buried.

Sam was a combination of John and Mary, Bobby thought. He has the dark curls of his father and piercing hazel eyes that are too big for his face. Although he could be a pain (all kids were pains), Bobby figured Sam Winchester was the sweetest boy he had ever met. That, for sure, was from his mother. And he was little-the smallest kid in every single kindergarten class, he whined-but Bobby found it cute. He didn't know how or when he came to love those two troublesome boys, yet he wouldn't have it any other way.

Dean sighs and toys with the frayed hem of his shirt. "Fine," he says finally, "The library. Can we go there?"

"Don't gotta tell me twice!" Sam squeaks, pulling on his olive Salvation Army jacket over his pajamas. Bobby fails to suppress the hearty laugh that pushes out of his throat.

Dean diverts from his brother as he enters the library, which is the first thing Bobby finds strange.

But, all Dean wants to do is find something, and find it fast, before the geezer starts complaining about ditching the clan at the entrance. He's unsure of which section to rifle through, and he isn't too keen on asking any employees. Gingerly, he walks through the aisles, the thumping of his sneakers pounding in his ears. His heart hammers in his chest, threatening to leap out of his ribcage.

_Oh God oh God he wishes God would strike him dead-_

Long fingertips brush the spine of a dilapidated book, clearly forgotten in the many years it's inhabited the shelves. He sets it on the table softly and his eyes sweep the title page.

_Ye Olde Book of Spirits._

It contained everything he needed to know about spirits, including how to summon them. That's what his heart was set on.

It was hard to identify why he wanted such literature to begin with. But as he flipped through the pages and inhaled the tart scent of crisp parchment, he knew. He wanted to resurrect his mother. It would definitely make his father proud of him. Less angry than he was at the moment. Inwardly, he crossed his heart that not only would he perfectly inscribe the Latin into his mind, but he'd collect the herbs and draw the sigil, cross whatever lines it took to summon his mother. In his mindset it was six years too late. Dean doesn't realize how much he yearns for his mother with each passing day. It comes in bouts; he'd be shivering under thin bedsheets, hungry and exhausted; ill, with no cool hand to press against his forehead or soft lips to sing "Hey Jude"; simple things, such as applying a band-aid to a scrape, influenced a brief reminisce about times past in which she had done such things for him. He feels his stomach twist at one of his earliest memories of her.

There is flour dusting the kitchen tiles. He's clinging to her flowered skirt as she hums to the Elvis on the radio.

_"Prepare four lit candles at the ends of a squared paper with a ritual circle on it-"_

John is nowhere to be found. Dean remembers the stentorian argument that had unfolded, but can't recall what it was about.

_-and a object belonging to the deceased-"_

Hums and tears where Dean cannot see them.

_-with a bowl of herbs at its side, in the centre of a circle made of salt."_

"Mommy? What are you making?" Hurriedly she brushes her hand under her eyes and kneels down, her vision level with his.

_"The performer recites the following incantation in Latin-"_

She cards her hand through his thick tawny hair. "The best pie in all the world." She answers, pressing her puckered lips against his forehead and intertwining her slender fingers with his chubby baby hands.

_"Amate spiritum obscure."_

"I love you Dean."

_"Te quaerimus."_

"I love you, Mom."

_"Oramus nobiscum colloquere."_

"Will you love your new brother?"

_"Apud nos circita."_

The innocent giggle of her child sweeps Mary off of her feet all over again. "Of course, Mommy!"

_"He makes the circle of salt and, at the end of the incantation, throws a lit matchstick at one side of the paper without burning it."_

Hums and tears where Dean cannot see them.

He is thrown back into reality as rivers pave their way down his mottled cheeks. He slams the book shut and shakes his head. His mother was too integrious a woman to be dead.


	4. Awaken, Part II

The scent of whiskey and Old Spice wafts through the air as Bobby pounds through the library. Sam skips behind, hugging a copy of _The Velveteen Rabbit _and singing John Lennon.

They come across Dean sobbing into the sleeves of his oversized flannel, a book grasped tightly in the crook of his arm. Bobby sits next to the young boy, embracing Sam on his lap and squeezing Dean's shoulder in a fluid movement only a father could master.

"What've you got there, kiddo?" He hands Dean a wadded-up napkin, pats his knee. Sam puts his thumb between his lips.

Wordless and defeated, Dean slides the book across the table. Bobby watches him evenly, flipping some pages and rapping his knuckles on the wood. "Good read, boy, I'll tell you that."

Dean smiles shyly at the velvet on the chair.

"What do you need it for?"

"You don't think it will sound strange?" Dean whispers hoarsely. Bobby barks a staccato laugh.

"Kid, I've seen strange you'd never believe!" A reticent _shhh _from Sam forces Bobby to drop his voice lower.

Dean presses the toe of his sneaker against the carpet and rubs it in. Small rings of ash from cigarette butts coat the area beneath his other foot.

"It's my mother," He squeaks. Bobby feels the muscles in Sam's shoulders tense as the little boy straightens. He leans close towards Dean, close enough to see his bloodshot eyes and the freckles, like stars, powdering his nose.

"You wanna raise Hell itself, boy?"

The doe eyes blink a couple of times and refocus. "I can try."

The veteran hunter rubs his temples flanked by a drawn out flare of his nostrils. "Dean, you're unfamiliar with the spirit world, c'mon. What if you brought somethin' else in other than your momma?"

A steely glare flashes in Dean's eyes. His mouth twitches, and flighty thoughts race through his mind as he gathers something biting to say. His words flow like water. "I haven't seen my mother in six years," he hisses, "and Sammy, Sammy's never. " He rakes his hand through his short blond hair. "I need to see her. You're the only one who can help here."

Sammy is singing "Beautiful Boy" by John Lennon as he's strapped into a car seat.

"There's a Sioux agriculturist living on the outskirts of a reservation. We'll get the herbs there." Dean nods and ogles at the world blurring past him. A pair of eyes bare holes into the back of his neck.

"Sam? What do you want?"

"I miss Daddy." The child's voice is barely audible.

Dean smooths his sweaty palms upon his jeans. The swelling on his cheek has gone down, but not quite. It stings at the touch of ice, and he flinches if Sam pokes him the wrong way. "I know you do. But he'll be back eventually." Dean isn't sure whether or not that is an empty promise. He cannot afford to let his baby brother down again.

The Sioux has a name, and it's Mapiya Pratt. She's got long dark hair held in a tight bun and an obscure look in her gray eyes. Her skin reminds Dean of baked clay, smooth and dark.

She opens the door with a gracious smile. "Bobby Singer. I'll be damned."

The older man flicks the brim of his baseball cap. "You better believe it. These are my nephews, Dean and Sam."

She nods goodnaturedly and ushers the trio into her kitchen. A crude television, one knob missing from its base, sits on the counter.

"What're you here for, Singer?" Sam looks around the room at the wooden animals and charms nestled within the crevices of the cramped space. His feet dangle a considerable length above the floor. He thinks about what Dean was talking about with Bobby, about his mother. There isn't much to consider.

"My boy here wants to resurrect his mom. Think you can help?"

Mapiya's eyebrows arch in surprise. That is one request she's never been asked in her career. She taps her long red nails against the back of Sam's chair. "You must be kidding. I am not going to help a child raise one of the dead."

Dean stands up in his seat. "You better."

Bobby narrows his eyes at the kid, draws a sharp breath. "Dean Winchester, I swear, you play nice or that book ain't going to be seen again." The boy really is his father's soldier. He's loyal and swift, as if he himself came signed, sealed, delivered from Vietnam.

Older brother swallows his anger and digs his nails into his palm. Dull pain.

"Miss...she died in a fire when I was four. I haven't seen her in six years. God, do I miss her..." He missed her strawberry scented shampoo and the lipstick caps that always fell on her carpet and her aprons and the way her hands felt on his skin right after she washed the dishes. He longed for the nail polish stains, the laughter, the royal blue eyes that sang their praises whenever she gazed down at him. He'd do anything to go back in time and deter her from running into Sam's nursery that night. This was Sam's fault, after all. Sam had cried. Sam had been pursued by the Yellow Eyed Demon.

He should fucking hate Sam.

But what could he hate? This was his little brother.

The one who made him fingerpaint art. The one who gave his brother the cards on Mother's Day because he was too embarrassed to admit he had no mother. The one who taught himself to read after he caught that stomach virus in Omaha.

There was nothing to hate about Sam, the brother of runny noses and mismatched socks.

He steals a look at Sam from across the table. He was humming a tune to a soft rock song while coloring with stolen diner crayons.

Sympathy pangs deep within Mapiya. She chews her lip, clearly distressed. Silently, she retreats to the basement to collect what is needed for Bobby.

Sam crawls into Dean's lap after a while. He falls asleep after Dean murmurs the opening lines of "Hey Jude."

Mapiya watches the boys with her hawklike eyes as she ascends the stairs.

"You two are close," She remarks as she hands Bobby a cardboard box. "Very close. Very close can be dangerous." Sam's eyelashes flutter momentarily as his limbs tighten around his brother. Dean clenches his jaw without a word. He isn't sure how he holds in his damn-near blasphemy until they arrive at Bobby's.

"He's my _brother_. He's_ six._ I carried him out of the fire..." Dean spreads the altar cloth over the diningroom table, his eyes flitting from one symbol to the next.

"Dean, I know. But Pratt was right as rain. Close can be dangerous. It's everybody's weakness, Dean, not just yours."

"Everybody says it, you know."

Bobby does know.

"I don't care though. Everyone expects me to hate Sam, but-but how? Sometimes, I swear, he's the only thing keeping me sane when Dad's out for three weeks and we're holed up in a crap motel. Does nobody get that?"

Impulsively, Bobby brings Dean close to him. He wraps one arm around him and cradles his head with the other. Inhales his distinctive scent of sun-warmed flannel and grass. "Relax, kiddo. I got you."

It takes Dean a few minutes to understand why he doesn't say he loves him.

Because it's simply in what Robert Singer doesn't say.


	5. Daddy Dearest

**Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any characters! Unfortunately.**

Jim secures John a mechanic job in Blue Earth, which he isn't very fond of.

Instead, he insists on looking for paying hunting jobs over breakfast the following morning, ones where a simple salt and burn could go for about $150.

"John, as your friend, if you think I'm going to allow you to do that..."

The man cringes, his dark eyebrows drawing into a crease on his forehead. "Why not? I'm getting paid for the thing I do best. Mechanics is a thing of the past."

Jim shrugs and rises from his chair to collect the dishes. "Bobby has advised you to take a break with hunting, hasn't he?"

A sharp grunt and an eye roll confirm such a thing.

"So, why not? A year, one year off to spend with your sons."

Senses dulled from the lack of alcohol flare up in a split second. "One year wasted in my search for Mary's killer!" John shouts. Beady hazel eyes fluctuate color in the light.

Jim swallows his timidity and pulls John off of his chair with a sharp motion of the wrist. "Do you see what you're doing to yourself, John Winchester?!" He yanks down the man's sleeve and pushes it closer towards his face, showing him the scars patterned along his milky white skin. Scars of war. Scars of hunting.

He points out ones he knows.

"_This _one. You almost cut out an artery trying to prove to me you weren't a demon."

"_This_ one from the wendigo in '84!" A puckered line just above the elbow.

"And _t__his _one...aswang from two months ago." A deep skinny mark along his forearm.

"John, I thought you were going to die on my dining room table that day. I was thinking of the ER. I was trying to think of how. To. Tell. Your. _Boys!" _Prayer books scatter across the table in an angry sweeping motion, and hit the floor in a cluster of noise. Jim's golden hair falls into his eyes, and his lanky frame folds into itself as he leans over the kitchen counter and shakes his head.

John tries to swallow the lump in his throat as he looks at his scars.

Mary. He's failed Mary.

This life was not one she had ever dreamed of. After he came home from 'Nam, all he listened to was her picturing white picket fences and apple pies. And that's what he had wanted, too. Steadily, he lowers Jim's hand.

"I-I guess you're right. I'm going to pick a few things up in town." He brushes his hands off of his jeans and instinctively inserts his Swiss army up his sleeve before Jim can protest. He even manages a weak smile before climbing into the car, numb in the joints and a tang on his lips he just can't seem to fucking shake. He feels as if he's been suffocated by the surfaces surrounding him. Just thinking of Mary makes his stomach lurch and the distinctive smell of burning hair and smoke snake up his nostrils.

That glassy look in her eyes when he stared up at them makes him rest his head on the wheel and his shoulders shake like there's no tomorrow.

He thought he was over the crying and carrying on. Maybe he'd packed it up in Vietnam and left it there, burning with the Vietcong he's combated, the villagers he's seen black and blue and laughed in the faces of.

His nose is running and his cheeks are full of blush, even though he has no reason to be embarrassed.

He drives with some shameless blasting of Metallica and an indescribable feeling coursing through his veins.

John buys cigarettes by the carton from the five-and-ten. Windom, Minnesota crosses his mind as well as Kate Milligan, the nurse he's knocked up. He wonders how she's getting by. Inclined to do what Jim says is right, he calls her up with a pay phone on the streetcorner and she answers on the first ring.

"Hello?" That same timid voice.

He stares at his shoes. Gum is attached to one of the soles. "Kate..."

"John." Nervous laughter. He wonders if she's twirling her hair right now. She did that so many times the night they met. "Hi."

"How are you?"

"Getting by. And you?"

"I'm alright."

The intimacy they'd had. The touching. The hair-pulling. It seemed to sink through his fingers and slip out of his reach, like smoke. Once he'd had it, he knew he wouldn't be able to catch it again. The conversation is sparse, and he hangs up quickly after she tells him her due date. Late September.

On his fifth whiskey at the bar, he decides he isn't calling Kate again for a really long time.

Time passes by in a blur for John. He's beaten out of the joint by a buxom bartender snapping that it's closing time. Disoriented and nauseous, he's unsure of direction and equilibrium, and where the hell he parked the car. His head feels like he's getting a hole drilled through it and his mouth is dry and his feet are cold and he feels so weak he hurls right on the steps of the bar, night being the only thing to console him.

He manages to feebly stumble into the right car and recollect his scattered thoughts for a few moments. His boys cross his mind, as well as how they're holding up in Sioux Falls. God, he's been such a deadbeat father to those kids. An image of his own old man comes to view. Guiding hands cupping his cheek, fingers tapping under the chin. They'd shared the same thick, dark hair, slim build, and wide smile. That's what his mother had said.

Mary insisted that he certainly didn't need his dad in his life after all, he turned out just fine, didn't he?

He guessed he did.

But that was then, and this is now, and he wishes he could've known the bastard. At least something about him, like the best day of his life or his favorite president. When he was a kid, his mother showed him pictures of his father, but nothing compared to the sobs he heard from her bedroom during really bad nights.

He drives straight to Jim's in a strange wave of calmness that washes over him. He's going crazy, that's the only explanation. Or perhaps he'd jumped off the deep end years ago, and this is its effects.

Jim greets him with a strong, silent grip of the shoulder. The wiry pastor directs him to an empty, frigid room at the end of the hall. The belfry in the distance clangs a tune John can't quite put his finger on.

He peels off his t-shirt and gapes at his body in the smudged mirror. He's lost a considerable amount of weight since 1983, instead packing on lean muscle. His unshaven face appears wan and jaded. Purple bruises flower along his torso, and calluses grace his massive hands. Dirt has accumulated under his fingernails; it's permanently etched its way into the deep wrinkles paved along his skin. He's pretty sure the bone in his left foot that he hadn't gone to the emergency room for was healed by now.

He turns around to grab his duffel from the closet, but it shimmers with a radiant orange glow before he can. He tugs the zipper open, his fingers practiced as they wrap around the trigger and grip of his gun. His eyes are trained on the door, and he tightens his clench on the smooth metal of the weapon. He's praying that this is the end. It isn't particularly bloody or tragic in the least- a perfect account to tell Dean and Sammy.

The doors rattle, and their two black knobs fly off of the wood and collide with the wall behind John. With a thunderous jolt, the structures thrust themselves open. A tall, disheveled gentleman in a bright blue suit scrambles out of the opening, blinking rapidly and whipping his head around before squinting straight at John.

The stranger's brown eyes light up in a mixture of astonishment and relief, and his tongue clucks for a moment before he speaks.

"Son?"

_**I'm so sorry. This is so overdue! I had a lot of testing this school week. Thanks for the patience! Please review?**_


	6. Matris Spíritus

**Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any characters! Unfortunately.**

_Mary's wedding ring is as simple as it is beautiful. While it once hugged the slender finger of a tall white-blonde who laughed too hard and sang too loud, the ring now hung on a black leather cord around Dean Winchester's neck. There were a lot of stories surrounding that narrow silver ring, stories that John had the potential to tell, but never would. Not really. On November 2, 1983, such memories had burned up alongside Mary on the ceiling. In fact, a lot of things did. The edges of Dean's innocence, John's warmth, or anything reminiscent of Sam's thoughts of his mother simply curled up and flaked off into cinder and ash and everything unholy. The rest of it was eaten up in seconds, through throes of agony and gruesome tears that no one bothered to mention to John ruined your life. Yet somehow, that ring seemed to make its way back to that incomplete family in that particular time of need. The ring had dents, and it surely had scratches, but John picked it up from beside the charred steps of the porch and marveled at how it had retained its beauty from the time he had bought it._

_From his vantage point, John watched Dean sob lightly into his baby brother's blanket. A firefighter walked towards the boys and sat beside them, a protective hand on the toddler's back. His mouth was moving, and John could not decipher what he was saying, but his boy was nodding and wiping his tears away with the back of his hand._

_He stared at his wife's ring in his palm and jogged over to Dean, who was alone then._

_"Hey, sport." He sat the baby on his lap and pat his back._

_Dean swallowed and looked up at him, whispering, "Hi, Daddy."_

_John kissed his son's soft blonde hair and took the ring from his pocket, pressed it into Dean's small hand. "This is for you, buddy. To remember Mommy by." He gawked at police lights as they cast an eerie, sullen glow on his son's pale skin. _

_Dean put it on and scrutinized its ill fitting. "I can't wear this, Daddy."_

_Baby Sam gurgled and whined in John's warm embrace. "No, not like that. But I'll put it on a cord for you to wear. How is that?"_

_He nodded silently and held his father's hand, the ring grasped tightly between their intertwined fingers._

Dean places Mary's ring in the center of the ritual circle. Bobby clasps his hands around the boy's thin shoulders, looking him sternly in the eye. "You sure you want to do this, Dean?"

"Of course I'm sure. We've gotten this far." He tosses a glance at the arrangement of objects on the altar cloth. A vague dullness thrums through his brain, as if he's just surviving on instinct.

"You remember the incantation?"

"A thousand times over."

Bobby exhales deeply and grabs the matchbox. "You ain't touchin' this 'til you're thirty. Now put down the salt."

By muscle memory does Dean lay the salt in a flawless circular formation. When he straightens, he shoots Bobby a look of confirmation. Together, they spit out the Latin in a crude mixture of irritability and desperation. Bobby tosses the matchstick and presses his arm against Dean to withdraw.

"Why isn't anything happening?" Dean blurts out dumbly, his voice thick and strangled.

Bobby watches the ring levitate and waiver in the air for mere seconds. Flames from the candles nip hungrily at the chilled air of the room. In a split second, the spirit of a woman materializes within the circle of salt. Dean's breath hitches in his throat as his gaze sweep her slender frame.

The woman wears a lacy cream nightgown, and her soft face is framed by long golden curls. She has deep cerulean eyes, heavily lashed and hardened by years of what Bobby can only think of as warfare. There is a heavy flush in her rounded cheeks as well as a full curve in her bottom lip, which she shares with her two sons.

"M-mom..." Dean outstretches his hand to her.

A melancholy smile tugs at the corners of her lips. "Oh, Dean...my Dean." Her steady voice shatters and she stares wistfully at her boy. "You've grown so much. I can't believe I've missed it..."

Dean shakes his head slowly. "It isn't your fault, Mom. We're getting revenge. This demon, h-he's going to pay." His eyes settle on the silver charm bracelet the graces her small wrist. Dean remembers the noises it made so clearly, like bells. He recalls how it felt in his hands when it was wet, and how his fingertips would rub against the charms. Then, he did not know what they meant. His heart creeps into his throat as he studies the ankh, the Star of David, the cross, the pentagram, the Eye of Horus. Bitterly, he jabs at how the Egyptian symbol of life lay upon his mother's wrist, and how it had not kept her alive. Hadn't kept her safe.

Mary purses her lips and sets her jaw. "How do you know about demons, Dean?" She demands. Her stomach roiling, she follows his line of sight and raises her arm to look at the charms dangle and clink together on her bracelet. "How do you know what these mean?"

Dean's mouth twitches. His voice seems to leave his body before he allows it to. It's working against him, he knows it. The voice Dean is speaking in is not his; he doesn't recognize it. Dean Winchester would never talk about his father like this.

Dean Winchester is a good soldier.

"Dad. He teaches us everything we need to know. I-I know how to throw knives. Sammy, he can shoot a gun if Dad steadies his hands."

With each word, Mary looks more crestfallen. Dean's account of everything that has happened within the last six years of his life seem to physically pierce her like the knife that had driven its way through her stomach. Nothing good ever comes out of hunting. She had salted and burned too many. She had tortured all the lovely bad ones. She cursed her father under her breath. _Look where it got me, Daddy. _

"No! How could he? How could he do that to you boys?!" Mary wails, but she feels as if it was not loud enough. She feels as if she is drowning within her own thoughts, the illusion of a perfect life imploding before her very own eyes. It was terrifically stupid of her to believe, even for a second, that she could escape Mary Campbell. If it was up to her, she would say that Mary Campbell was an entirely different person, and that she was dead. But now, Mary Winchester was dead, too. Hunter and housewife, two sides became one.

Dean watches her in quiet anguish. "It's what we've always known. And at this rate, what we'll always know."

Mary's chest heaves and her hands clench into fists. "You will never become hunters. That's what I promised myself, every day. You will never become hunters."

Shooting her possessed grandfather at eleven, she promised.

While being buried alive for training at fourteen, she pledged.

Studying for Latin rather than attending her promenade at eighteen, she insisted.

Staring at those twin blue lines on her pregnancy test at twenty-four, Mary knew.

"Mom..." Dean blinks slowly, drinking in the image of his mother. He never wants to forget that face as long as he lives. "There is nothing I can do. The only thing I _can_ do is look after Sammy."

Mary presses her fingers against her mouth in unconscious brooding. "How is he, my little Sam?" She wants to weep as she thinks of her baby. He never knew her, not really. She longs to see him grow up and be his own person, but she can't. Of course she fucking can't.

"Sammy? Mom, he's really good. He taught himself to read, you know that? He's the smartest one in his class...asks a lot of questions. His favorite color is orange. He likes John Lennon. And animals. Mostly dogs. His favorite food is peanut butter. He likes talking about presidents and baseball. And he always wears these stupid yellow rain boots..." He doesn't realize how fast he's talking, trying to get Sammy's entire essence into one speech. It takes him a second or two until he realizes that he can't. Sam is a little more than his favorite color or animal. What he doesn't understand is that he is, too.

Mary laughs softly into her hands. "Beautiful boy."

"W-what?" He recognizes the words from the song Sammy always sings.

_Close your eyes!_  
_Have no fear!_  
_The monster's gone!_  
_He's on the run and your da-ddy's here!  
Beau-ti-ful, beau-ti-ful, beau-ti-ful boy!_

"I used to sing a song to him when he got a little fussy. 'Beautiful Boy.'" She used to be wary of restless nights, with an uncooperative husband forcing her to sing the baby to sleep. Nowadays, she'd sacrifice anything to pace around the nursery with Sam, breathing in a healthy dosage of baby powder and vanilla lotion.

Dean smiles at her, thinking about the night Sam came home. There were phone calls and hushed voices and an _oh how a-dor-a-ble! _from Missus Sherman next door, and Daddy laughed and Mommy laughed and so did Dean. He remembers the whir and flash of his mother's Polaroid, and the tacky scent of the Sharpie she used to label the photo. _Baby Sam and Dean, 1983._

That photo had fucking burned.

Her spirit flickers for a few moments, breaking the surface of his thoughts. She looks at him with panic and worry written across her face; he doesn't know how to respond to it. Mothers aren't supposed to do this to their children. Mothers aren't even supposed to die from ceiling fires.

Dean blinks back shock. He chokes out that he loves her, and that he doesn't want to see her go, but he knows she has to, and she says that he and Sam are the best things that ever happened to her, and _I'm-so-sorry-this-had-to-happen-to-you..._

_My little soldier._

He isn't sure if he's allowed to hug her. Bobby gestures that he can, so he mindfully steps over the boundary and pulls Mary into an embrace long overdue. It feels different to wrap his arms around her waist rather than the space between her legs. Gratefully, she cradles his head and presses her nose into his golden hair. He fists her shirt; her fingers clasp around a handful of his sweater. He is thankful that he cannot smell the stench of burn or rot on her body. Instead, she emits a fragrance of apple-cinnamon and brown sugar, as always after a bath. Clean rather than dirty. Pure rather than tainted.

"I'll never let this go," he whispers into the satin of her dress.

"I know, baby," she cries, pressing her lips against his forehead. "I know."

She disappears seconds later. For the first time, Dean thinks he believes in God.


	7. Time Warp

**Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Unfortunately.**

**Read and review? Sorry this took so long; school has been bogging me down. I hope you all enjoy! You deserve it!**

The two men glare at each other warily. A pregnant pause passes between them.

"Who the hell are you?" John snaps, pinning the man against the wall in a swift motion. "Start talking or I'll blow your fucking head off." He grinds his teeth together, his thumb stroking the grip of the gun.

The man in the blue suit straightens to his full height without missing a beat. He is tall and willowy, and stalks over to John to knock the weapon away. Within contacting the ground, it goes off abruptly, piercing the heavy air. A deafening sound emits from the barrel that John can and will never adjust to. Shouting above the noise and commotion, he says, "John, it's me!"

John doesn't understand. He kneels to grab the gun.

"Your father! Henry!"

He flinches bitterly. Aims the gun and adjusts his grip with calloused, trembling hands. "My father? My father walked out on me and my mother when I was four."

Henry's fingers curl around a small square made of dark leather. Quickly, they move, extracting a photograph from an ancient camera of sorts. The photo itself looks brand-new, and in it reside a little Winchester and his father, smiling into the camera from a dock on an Illinois creek John recognizes almost immediately.

Henry looks from the photo to his son. Little John looks a time beyond his actual age. What he doesn't understand is what made him such a barbarian. Years of sorrow and struggle seem to be painted on his young son's face in the form of wrinkles and hardness in his eyes. Clearing his throat, he speaks with a twinge of pain lacing his voice.

"...That was your fourth birthday party, Johnny. And I never forgot it, ever. John, when I left that night...I was meant to come back."

"Well, what the hell happened?" John barks, lowering the gun and placing it on the desk. His fingers stroke through his beard repeatedly, anxiously. Suspicion racks his mind, and he doesn't know where to channel it. Gingerly, he leans on the desk and crosses his arms over his chest. "Humor me."

"I am part of an organization known as the Men of Letters. I left that night to go to my initiation, and I was due back. But one of the other initiates...she was possessed by a demon. A powerful one, known as Abaddon. And we tried to fight against her, but she was immune to exorcism. She killed almost all of our men." Henry glosses thickly, his voice caked with urgency.

"So how are you alive?" John says, a note of concern in his voice.

Henry's voice waivers and halts for a moment. "One of the men gave me a special box to protect, which contains the key to where we have stored all of the knowledge we have possessed. I used a blood spell to travel throughout time to reunite with you."

"We have a lot of catching up to do, don't you think?" John quirks a small, painful grin. He watches as Henry slips a compact rectangular box from his suitjacket. A thumb quickly runs across the strange symbol gracing the front, his face twisted into a wistful expression.

"...Yes, we do." Henry responds quietly, his eyes averting to the compilation of weapons and books scattered throughout the room. Muddy boots have left dry tracks along the pockmarked wooden floor, and there are tiny flecks of brown blood on one of the chairs. Grief enraptures and numbs him; he's known from the start that something is very wrong with John.

A well worn photograph on the nightstand captures his attention, and a sense of warmness and familiarity immediately fills his heart. A young woman stands in the folds of John's arms, holding a white bundle against the breast of her dress. A small boy with hair the color of straw clings to the leg of his father's church pants. The family has wide grins-the boy is even missing a tooth. Henry plucks the picture gently off of the table and turns to his son. "Your family?"

"Some o'them." mutters John, starting to clean his guns. "My wife, Mary...she died. The little baby is Sammy. Blondy is Dean." Talking about his boys makes him feel a little softer. He can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Henry looks down at the picture again. John's hazel eyes look unfocused. Mary's massive smile looks forced. "How did she die, if you mind me asking?"

"A demon killed her."

Henry's head snaps up in bewilderment as it all fits into place. The Bibles and lore books, the fucking guns. "You're a hunter," he breathes. John can't suppress the acidic laugh that hangs in the air.

"Of course I am!" He throws his hands in the air, his neck jutting out. "I had to do something to avenge her."

Henry holds up a hand for silence. "You could've been a Man of Letters. I can help you do that now, you know. I can get you out of this...uncivilized life."

"Can your 'uncivilized' bullshit. I saw the way you looked at my stuff. My life. Look, it's not what I had in mind, but I'm dealing with it." He runs his hands through his hair in exasperation and sits on the bed. The springs groan and creak with a tinny noise. Yawning, John leans over and rummages through a drawer in the nightstand, withdrawing an alcoholic flask and knocking it back. The vodka burns the back of his throat like fire. The searing liquid soothes his irritability as if it were a dream.

"No, you're not dealing with it. You just think you are," detests Henry with a sharp breath.

John props his booted feet against the baseboard of the bed and props his hands behind his head. "Maybe so, old man, but there's not much you can do to help me."

Indignant, Henry stands up and crosses his arms. "Of course there is! Come with me, and I'll show you the Men of Letters bunker. End of story." John snorts and digs his hands deep into his jacket.

"You're not about to let this go, are you?"

"Not a chance."

The eternal car ride to Lebanon, Kansas is silent. Henry recalls fond moments from when John was little, and questions would constantly float up from the backseat. He and his wife Quinn would exchange smiles from the front, watching him sing, color, or point out the window.

_Why don't ducks get wet, Daddy?_

_They have a special oil on their feathers, Johnny._

He eyes John now, slumped sloppily in the passenger seat with his eyes closed. His breathing is even, and he snores; Henry always remembered that he snored.

Of course, John had become a hunter. Of all the things Henry had wanted him to steer clear of, he had to become a hunter. They were wild, killing everything upon sight rather than looking, listening, observing. Hunters were irrational, and on top of that, impulsive. He couldn't find a single redeeming quality despite an incredible resilience. That was something all the hunters he had met shared.

Henry thought about Quinn's whereabouts in the present day. If she was dead, he wouldn't know exactly how to mourn. She thought he had abandoned her, when in reality all he wanted was to get back. The sole thing he kicked himself for was not telling her the truth. He was a Man of Letters, God damn it-he was supposed to be the pinnacle of honor, integrity and intelligence. Perhaps she wouldn't have believed him-called him mad? Hell, if she had told him what he'd been through, he would've locked her in a straitjacket as soon as possible. He could practically hear her snappy voice pound in his brain: _The supernatural? Oh, you've got to be kidding me now, Henry! Ha-ha!_

He missed Quinn. He'd ask John about her later.

The recent discovery of two little grandsons also caught his attention. It seemed John hadn't really known about things that go bump in the night for that long, anyway. Rather, he'd gotten married-to a lovely woman, he didn't doubt that in the slightest- and started a family. It was too bad it'd all gone to shit.

His curiosity about his grandsons held like a weight in the back of his mind. It felt disjointed and awkward to Henry, knowing that there were grandchildren in the mix when he was physically thirty years old. Hell, his own son was older than him at this point. Sighing, he put it to the back of his mind, and pulled in front of the bunker.

It had stayed well concealed over the years, Henry was glad. Partially hidden by snaking vines of ivy and undergrowth, the opening reminded him somewhat of a Hobbit Hole, and that brought a thinly veiled smile to his lips.

John rouses as he is inserting the key into the keyhole.

"We're here?" He asks, standing to full height and dragging a hand down the side of his craggy face.

"That's right."

John squints and twists open his flask in distress. "Doesn't look like much."

The lights flicker on and something wheezes within the radiators.

"Well, why don't you take a look inside?"

John steps into the ornately decorated room, his heavy footsteps ricocheting hollowly throughout the open space. The feeling of domestication and home he'd thought to be gone from his life washes over him in an overpowering wave of discomfort. Light streams through the dirty windows and specks of dust fly in the sunlight, dotting the air with strange patterns. He studies his shadow looming below him on the ground, much too long and heavy for his liking. A spindly shadow joins him.

"This...this is the Men of Letters bunker. I'm sure you'll want to call it home sometime soon." Henry insists, brushing past him to admire the artwork adorning the walls and the lush furniture scattered amongst the rooms.

_No, _John wants to say, chewing the inside of his cheek as if it were a smooth gum. He feels for the miniature vial of holy water in his coat pocket and strides beside his father.

"It's nice," he mutters nonchalantly. In the second he pulls the tube from his coat his own father manages to pin him against the wall, hot breath mixing with the cool atmosphere and coming out like a dragon's roar.

"Don't play games with a man who can play better, John." Henry snaps, and drinks the vial with indifferent air.


	8. UPDATE!

Dean feels as if he has chewed glass as he stares at the circle of salt. He digs the toe of his canvas sneaker into the line, breaking it and watching the little crystals skitter across the floor. "It worked," he says slowly. "I can't believe it worked."

The corners of Bobby's mustache turn up slightly as he crosses his arms over his chest. "That's right, boy. You did good." He watches Dean smile tentatively, his chest puffing out. Bobby leaves the room with a squeeze to Dean's shoulder as he kneels to pick up the ring, which feels almost foreign in his palm.

He can only imagine one instance where his mother had taken it off. John, to Dean's dismay, had harshly scolded her and slammed the front door so hard the china cabinet rattled. The reason as to why was unbeknownst to him, being he was only four years old at the time. But he never forgot her cries, and the phone calls with the hushed voices.

_John. You better come back. Dean is asking where you are._

She'd taken it off the second day Daddy didn't come home, twisting it in her manicured fingernails before washing her face and jogging outside to toss a ball around with her son. The intensity of the argument haunted him during the nights his father still hadn't returned to kiss him goodnight.

"Where did he go?" Dean had asked, his eyes flicking across the words of the _King Arthur _book Mary was reading.

She glanced up at him through the blonde hair falling into her eyes. "Daddy took a vacation. He'll be back soon, baby." Flushed, his mother left the room so quickly she'd forgotten to finish the chapter they were in the middle of. Looking back at it, they'd never finished, because she'd died two weeks later. In fact, he mused fondly, he ended up reading the book to Sammy.

Sam is staring out the front window as the Dean comes up the stairs, his dark eyelashes casting shadows over his rosy cheeks.

"What're you lookin' at, Sammy?" Dean asks, scrambling beside his brother to follow his gaze. He flicks a finger or two at the curls falling into Sam's hazel eyes.

"No snow." Sam sighs, turning to Dean with an owlish face. "It's almost Christmas and there's no snow?"

"Crazy. Call the police." He deadpans with nonchalance and a mischievous glint in his eye. Bobby chuckles under his breath and stands between the boys, gazing at the wind caressing the bare trees and dry patches of grass in the front yard.

Sam blinks and cranes his neck, hoping to see the Impala cruising down the road to take him far, far away. Daddy's been gone for so many days he's beginning to worry his father is dead. Secretly, Sam has counted how much time has passed since Dean's been slapped and Uncle Bobby's screamed at his father for doing it. Six days. In those six days, Bobby and Dean have talked secretly and laughed together like a real father and son, and it makes Sam feel like a fucking outsider looking in.

When Dean leaves, muttering about how cold the air in the house is, Bobby turns to the small boy and sits him on his lap, just like Santa would.

Sam watches the skin around his uncle's eyes wrinkle as he grins. It reminds him of crow's feet tracking cleanly in the snow. He remembers seeing something resembling that once, but he can't remember where. His best guess is New York. Before he knows it, Bobby's lips are moving like someone's muted the television. He stares up in confusion and his brow furrows. "Huh?"

"I said, you alright, Sammy?" Bobby's voice is sharp and gravelly, like sandpaper.

"Oh...are we going to have Christmas this year?"

Bobby wishes he was taken aback by Sam's question. He thinks it's an all time low for John to look over the holidays so much that Sam would have to even ask what he's asking. The sheer worry in Sam's wide eyes makes his stomach ache. "Of course we will, kiddo!" He crows as cheerfully as he can, palming the kid's dark hair in his hand. He feels small fingers fist his black t-shirt and hot breath on his chest, sounding in, out, in, out.

"Thanks." Sam says softly. "Can me and Dean make a Christmas list?" He keeps looking at the door like he's waiting for Santa to burst in right then and there.

"Of course. I'll even send it myself. Now, uh, where does it go again?"

Sam smiles weakly. "The North Pole. To Santa Claus."

Bobby clears his throat and looks at the baby in front of him. Dark circles ring his eyes, and his pert nose is dusted with pale spots. His lips are pressed thinly together and his thumb is in his mouth. That's Sam's way of dealing with it, Bobby philosophizes, "it" being everything a six-year-old Winchester shouldn't have to contend with. With a short tap to the cheek, Sam lets go of his thumb.

"Are you okay, Sam-O?" Bobby whispers.

Tears spring into Sam's frightened eyes. "No, Uncle Bobby." He cries, thick wet drops slipping down his cheeks and dropping off his chin. "Is Daddy dead?"

Bobby's heart wrenches with an unfamiliar sense of pity. He pulls Sam in and tightens his grip around his bony shoulders, even kissing that unruly dark hair. "No, your daddy ain't dead. Relax, Sam, he's okay." He shushes his sobs and feels the spasms rise and fall in his back. He's never in his life seen a little boy cry so hard, not even Dean in the aftermath of Mary. Deep down, Bobby wonders if he would, or even could, act the same way if Sam was his son and he himself was a father.

In the next moment Sam moans that he's going to throw up, and quickly Bobby pulls himself together enough to get the garbage pail. Blocking out the noise by humming Karen's favorite Beatles song, he pushes Sam's hair off of his forehead, and thanks his lucky stars the kid's not running a fever.

"I'm done." Sam whimpers to the floor, and Bobby cleans him up and tells him it's perfectly okay and everyone does it and not to worry, Sam, I'll let you talk to your dad on the phone soon, okay?

Okay. That sounds good.

Sam draws his knees up to his chest on the couch. Bobby gives him a tight smile before turning on the television and leaving him with Dean, who provides cold pizza from the day before. They watch _Christmas in Tattertown _and _A Claymation Christmas Celebration _back to back_, _which he knows are Sam's favorites. It distracts him for a while, and Dean gives him some paper to color with when they're over.

Dean smiles a little and nudges his brother. "You okay?"

"M'fine." He responds, blowing his curls out of his face and coloring harder.

A light tap on the arm, flanked by the humming of Metallica. "How do you feel?"

"Tired. Lonely. L-o-n-e-l-y." He writes it on the paper and underlines it three times.

"Why lonely? I'm right here!"

Sam glares at his brother. "...Daddy, Dean."

"So? This isn't the first time," Dean groans, rolling his eyes and throwing his hands in the air. Their father, true to form, was being fickle and ignorant, and it irritated Dean to no end. He hadn't called or made any effort of contact whatsoever. Usually, he'd be the first to defend John and his military methods, but making Sam sick with anxiety pushed him too far.

"Yeah. But it's the first Christmas." Sam says noncommittally, gawking at Dean.

He was walking on eggshells around his little brother. Possibly, it'd be the first Christmas without their father, and as much as that pained him, they'd get through it. Yet, when all you want is your father, it's difficult to grasp a reality without him. Dean wracks his brain for words to express what he wants to say. He huffs, "Well, he's Dad. He's got a lot of work to do." As soon as the words leave his mouth, he wants to kick himself.

"What kind of work? What does he sell again?" Sam was still under the carefully maintained illusion that their father was a traveling salesman.

"Guns." Dean answers tiredly, eyeing Sam's long hair. "We need to get you a pair of scissors, okay little brother?"

"Is that why he's always yelling at us to practice?" Sam presses, a pout surfacing on his soft pink lips. "And no!"

Dean laughs goodnaturedly and ruffles the dark waves. "Yeah, it is. I know it's annoying, Sammy, but practicing helps us get better. Everyone knows that."

Sam doesn't say anything for a long time. "Yeah, I guess."

**^ Unfinished. Okay, guys. Honestly, I feel like this story isn't getting much publicity, and I'm experiencing writer's block. So, where do you want this story to go? What would you like to see? I need some type of feedback to understand what I'm doing wrong [or right.] I really want this story to be appealing as well as popular, so please talk to me!**


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